For the first time since 2021, Benjamin Netanyahu is not the man holding the key to power in Israel. On Sunday, President Isaac Herzog handed the mandate to form a Government to Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief backed by 67 of the Knesset's 120 members, while Netanyahu could muster only 46. The voters' verdict is therefore hard to misread. The parties of Netanyahu's outgoing coalition fell from 68 seats to 53, turnout was the highest in decades, and Arab citizens, voting in record numbers, have suddenly become kingmakers.
Nevertheless, a mandate is not a majority. Eisenkot's own camp holds only 48 seats, and several of his allies refuse to sit with the Arab parties whose endorsement put him in front. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox parties, whose votes he may need, want exemptions from military service that he has vowed to end. He has 28 days, and perhaps 42, to square that circle. If he fails, Netanyahu gets his turn, and Israel may drift towards yet another election.
Still, the question the world is asking is a simpler one. Would an Eisenkot Government bring the region closer to peace? The honest answer is not by much, at least in substance.
On the Palestinian question, the gap between the two men is narrower than the campaign suggested. Eisenkot, like Netanyahu, rejects an independent Palestinian state, and he too says Israeli troops will stay in Gaza until Hamas is disarmed. Yet some differences matter to people living under occupation. He opposes the E1 settlement plan, which would cut the West Bank off from East Jerusalem, and says Israel should neither annex Gaza nor build settlements there. Moreover, his Government would not rely on ministers who openly demand annexation. For Palestinians, however, that is cold comfort after a war in which Gaza's health authorities count some 74,000 dead and a UN inquiry has found genocide, a finding Israel rejects. Many of them simply see a different man offering the same terms.
On Lebanon and Iran, Eisenkot may in fact be tougher. He is the author of the "Dahiyeh doctrine", which answers attacks with overwhelming force against entire districts, and he has accused Netanyahu of yielding too readily to American pressure for a ceasefire with Hezbollah. On Iran, he shares the aim of denying Tehran a nuclear weapon, although he talks more of using military pressure to force a diplomatic settlement.
Where change is more likely is in Israel's relations with the West. Here, Donald Trump has made matters awkward. He endorsed Netanyahu twice before the vote and warned that, with anyone else in charge, America would have to deal with Iran by itself. Eisenkot asked publicly that Washington stay out of the election, yet he has since pledged to renew and deepen the partnership. The likely result is a relationship that is less personal and more institutional, although Trump's decision to end the $4 billion in annual US grants will test it early.
Europe, on the other hand, is quietly hopeful. Officials in Brussels and several capitals have barely hidden their wish for a change of leadership. What they can realistically expect, however, is modest: firmer action against settler violence, fewer land grabs in the West Bank and more room for international partners in post-war Gaza. That would ease tensions, but it would not settle the central dispute over Palestinian statehood.
For Sri Lanka, none of this is abstract. Thousands of our workers are employed in Israel, and far more across the wider Middle East. Any escalation with Iran or Hezbollah therefore threatens remittances, fuel prices and the shipping lanes on which our fragile recovery depends. Colombo has long supported Palestinian rights at the United Nations while keeping working ties with Israel. A calmer Government in Jerusalem would make that balancing act easier, but it would not make it unnecessary.
Ultimately, Israelis have voted for a change of leadership, not necessarily a change of direction. The world should welcome a less divisive Government if one emerges. Even so, it should judge that Government by what it does in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon, rather than by the gentler tone of its speeches. Lasting peace will need a change of map, not merely a change of face.